A CSS Declaration Sorter is a developer tool that automatically rearranges CSS property declarations within style rules according to a specified order — such as alphabetical, by property type category, or by property name length. It helps maintain consistent, readable, and professional-looking stylesheets, especially in large projects with multiple contributors.

Sorting CSS properties offers several benefits: (1) Improved readability — team members can quickly locate specific properties; (2) Consistency — across files and components, making code reviews easier; (3) Reduced merge conflicts — when multiple developers edit the same file, sorted properties minimize trivial conflicts; (4) Better maintainability — organized code is easier to debug and update over time.

This tool supports five sorting modes:
A-Z — Alphabetical ascending (most common);
Z-A — Alphabetical descending;
By Type — Groups properties by category: CSS Variables → Positioning → Display/Flex/Grid → Box Model → Typography → Visual/Background → Animation/Transition → Other;
Shortest first — Orders by property name length (shortest to longest);
Longest first — Orders by property name length (longest to shortest).
Each mode respects the original block structure and preserves selectors.

The "By Type" mode follows a Concentric CSS-inspired methodology, ordering properties from the outside in: CSS custom properties (variables) come first, followed by positioning (position, top, z-index), then display & flex/grid, box model (width, margin, padding, border), typography (font, color, text-align), visual styles (background, box-shadow, opacity), animations & transitions, and finally miscellaneous properties. Within each group, properties are sorted alphabetically. This mirrors how many developers naturally think about layout.

No, CSS property order does not affect rendering performance in browsers. The browser parses all declarations within a rule regardless of their order. The only exception is when multiple declarations of the same property exist — the last one wins due to the cascade. Sorting only changes the visual organization of your source code, not the behavior or performance of the final rendered page.

Yes! This tool handles multiple CSS rules, @media queries, and nested selectors. It preserves the outer structure (selectors, at-rules, keyframe blocks) while sorting only the declaration blocks inside each rule. Comments within declaration blocks are retained and associated with their neighboring properties where possible.

Absolutely. All processing happens entirely in your browser using client-side JavaScript. Your CSS code never leaves your device, is never uploaded to any server, and is never stored or logged. You can use this tool with confidence even with proprietary or sensitive stylesheet code.

For team projects, the "By Type" mode (Concentric CSS) is widely recommended because it groups related properties logically. Many popular style guides and linters (like stylelint with order/properties-order rules) support this approach. Alphabetical sorting (A-Z) is also popular for its simplicity and objectivity — there's no debate about which group a property belongs to. Choose one and enforce it consistently with tooling.